


only if for a night

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [93]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Goodbyes, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: “Link,” the voice whispers again. It is smooth, male, rich like the most decadent of sweets. Link has heard it before, heard it like this even, low and murmured into his ear. There is affection there, a familiarity in the tone that tells Link that this thing, this remembering, is not one sided.And then it murmurs, “Are you being reckless again?”
Relationships: Ganondorf/Link (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Dark Month Collection [93]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/57298
Comments: 5
Kudos: 95





	only if for a night

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a not great few weeks, so I definitely have not been living up to the challenge I set for myself. That's okay, though. If there's any year to give myself a pass it's this one. October 18th. Prompts were: kiss of death, blood moon, loved one turns out to be the monster, followed, and message. And well, I obviously couldn't have one of the prompts be 'blood moon' and not write BotW.

It was going to be a long night. Link had already worked that out for himself well before the sun started to dip below the horizon. The day had been quiet. Gray, with rain clouds looming in the distance. He’d been expecting the rain for hours, but it never came, not even when the temperature dropped low enough in the evening that he was forced to don Rito furs.

He’d passed a moblin camp around mid-day, and even if he hadn’t known what day it was, the activity at the camp would have told him. The creatures were always more numerous on the eve of a blood moon. They jumped and startled, even at his quietest, so Link had given them a wide berth. He would need all of the weapons in his arsenal tonight if he didn’t manage to find shelter before moonrise.

It’s windy as night falls, and he feels a shiver of anticipation - something that is just beginning to edge into fear. He’s a good few hours from the nearest village, even if he presses his mount hard the whole way. And to make matters worse, it looks like snow, the gray clouds that have been following him all day hanging heavy and bloated above him. 

Link doesn’t manage to see the camp in time, too busy casting wary glances at the sky. That’s his first mistake. His second mistake is reacting too slowly to the lizalfos rounding the corner and taking the first arrow in his left shoulder, right below the joint. 

His third mistake is not running.

Monsters don’t take prisoners. If it had been the Yiga or perhaps a group of bold bandits, maybe he would have gotten lucky. He’s escaped dungeons before, wriggled himself out of too loose ropes and snuck right by the guards. That would have been easy. What happens, is he ends up fighting for his life.

It’s a grueling fight, made even slower without the use of one of his arms. The lizalfos are just as on edge as the moblins had been earlier, and they’re quick, faster than they have any right to be. By the time he’s killed the last of them, he’s in a sorry state, swaying back and forth on his feet, dizzy from the blood loss. He can taste it when he licks his lips, the taste sharp and metallic.

The camp is not ideal. It provides next to no protection against the weather, a fraying bolt of fabric stretched sloppily between two trees the only attempt that’s been made at shelter. It’s too visible from the road. But there is a fire over which a hunk of meat roasts, juices sizzling as they splatter against the wood beneath. 

Minimal shelter and much needed protein. Reinforcements may already be coming, but he is going to have to take that risk.

He makes it all of three steps before he collapses next to the fire, heaving for breath. He watches through slitted eyes as the moon rises. It is fat and golden in the night sky, beautiful for now. Link blinks tiredly, his lashes dragging wetly against his cheeks. They feel sticky. 

The meat is blackening on one side above him. He needs to turn it so that it cooks evenly, but he doesn’t have the energy. The arrow in his shoulder needs to be removed. He should cauterize the wound, maybe find a stream or some water to patch up the dozens of other lacerations all over his body. If he had a potion, it would help, but he used his last three days ago after a close run in with a lynel. 

He just wants to sleep.

The moon reaches its zenith in the sky and the night lights up red. Link holds his breath, half expecting dozens of new monsters to pour into the camp. Zelda’s warning comes, too late, and he has to close his eyes against the flutter of his heart. This is not the first time that he’s passed a blood moon in pain, half dead from his wounds, but it is the first time he’s passed one this vulnerable. 

He lays there quietly, wide eyes on the sky. A moment passes. Two. Ten. The red begins to seep slowly out of the sky. He breathes, evenly. In and out.

“Hello, Link,” a familiar voice whispers from the shadows behind him, and Link flinches, forgetting the arrow for a moment in his haste to roll towards the sound. He gasps in pain, squeezing his eyes shut as the shaft catches and snaps against the ground, the barbed point digging in deeper.

He makes a quiet noise, tiny and agonized, curling in on himself. 

“Oh,” the voice says. “Don’t do that.”

Footsteps sound behind him, a heavy tread crunching through the grass towards him. Link makes another noise and his _head_ \- it feels like it’s splitting open. There’s an ache there, sharp and insistent, as if something has punched through the back of his skull and is now twisting itself in deep. 

Where does he know that voice? He _knows_ that voice.

Dimly, he’s aware of the figure closing in - of it above him briefly, before the looming shape crouches next to him. A warm hand smooths down his side, the sensation no more than the slightest soothing pressure through his matted furs.There is breath on the back of his neck.

He feels all of this, even as his head is threatening to give under the pressure.

“Link,” the voice whispers again. It is smooth, male, rich like the most decadent of chocolate. He has heard it before, heard it like this even, low and murmured into his ear. There is affection there, a familiarity in the tone that tells Link that this thing, this remembering, is not one sided. 

And then it murmurs, “Are you being reckless again?”

The hand that had come to rest on Link’s hip turns rough, squeezing tightly, and Link arches up off the ground, his eyes flaring wide in pain as the arrow is torn from his shoulder in one smooth motion. Link opens his mouth to let out a quiet cry, and the man above him with that too familiar voice lets out a soft chuckle. The hand turns soothing again, fingers sweeping back and forth along his flank. 

“You know what comes next,” the voice tells him, and Link whines, because he does. He knows what needs to be done, so when the heat comes, he does not scream.

He lays there panting afterward, the pain in his head temporarily drowned out by the blistering of his shoulder. The man behind him makes a wordless noise of praise, and this time, when the touch comes, the fingers have slipped beneath the hem of his tunic, warm against his skin.

The hand is rough, calloused. Wide palm and long, thick fingers. These too, are familiar.

Link lets loose a breath, something that’s half sigh, and his entire body goes limp. Trusting. 

The hand on him freezes, fingers hesitating on his skin.

“Do you know me even now, Link?” the man asks in a quiet, wondering voice, and Link turns towards him, lids flickering open. The pain in his head comes to a point, sharp and agonizing as the features before him come into sharp relief, warmed by the firelight.

The memory snaps into place. 

This is unlike any of the memories that have come back to him before. Those had been simple, coming back to him like a sigh, like something long cherished slotting back into place. 

This memory - _these_ memories - are not gentle. They are a flood. A torrent. They _hurt_.

The man before him is nothing like the man Link remembers. He is _more_ somehow- his thick red hair spilling messily down his back, golden eyes zeroed in on Link. His nose is a sharp familiar slope, the jut of his jawline just the right shape for Link to fit the palm of his hand to. His chest is perhaps broader than Link remembered, his thighs thick with heavy muscle.

The last time that Link had seen Ganondorf, he was already twisted. Corrupted. It has been so long since Link has seen him like this that he’d… well, he’d forgotten.

“Oh,” Ganondorf says, a sweet smile spreading across his lips. “You _do_ know me.”

Link’s fingers curl in the soil below him. They are filthy - gritty with dirt and still damp with his own blood - but Ganondorf doesn’t protest when Link lifts them shakily to his jawline. If anything, he ducks into the touch, pressing hungrily back into Link’s fingers.

Link's lips form a word, a name, but it has been longer still since he’s been able to speak it. He signs clumsily with his free hand, lifting it into the space between them, and marveling at the speed at which Ganondorf’s eyes flick to his fingers. Link watches him swallow, the line of his throat bobbing uneasily.

“Yes,” Ganondorf says hoarsely. “It’s me.”

 _How_ , Link signs, because he can’t- he doesn’t-

Link has been asleep for a century. In that time, Ganon and Zelda have fought endlessly, locked in a battle that defied the very press of time. This man, warm and beautiful and _human_ , has not existed for a very long time. Not since the calamity took him.

Link gets to watch Ganondorf drop his eyes, a lock of hair spilling over his shoulder as he looks away from Link.

“Tonight is a very special night,” he tells Link after some time has passed. “I don’t think I will have more than the one.”

Link is quiet, his fingers still. Belatedly, he drops his hand from Ganondorf’s jaw. 

Ganondorf watches it go mournfully, but he doesn’t reach for it again. 

“I have a message for you,” he says quietly. His eyes lift, returning to Link’s. “From Zelda.”

Link jerks, his eyes wide, and Ganondorf has to hold him still so he doesn’t get to his feet that instant. 

“Stop,” Ganondorf tells him, hands steady on Link’s hip and chest. He holds him down so easily; Link had nearly forgotten. When Link only squirms harder, Ganondorf lets out a quiet growl and shifts, turning his body so that most of his weight is focused on keeping Link still. “Link,” he says through gritted teeth, dodging an outflung hand that nearly clocks him in the nose. Then, louder, “ _Link_.”

Link goes still, panting. 

He is half under Ganondorf now and his body - his body _remembers_ this part. He flushes at the surge of memory, the echo of Ganondorf’s body pressing his down just like this, but bare, slick with sweat. The feel of it, of those calloused hands parting his thighs, the tickle of those curls against his skin as Ganondorf ducked his head to _swallow_ -

Well. His body remembers.

“We don’t have long,” Ganondorf tells him. Link’s eyes flick to the sky above him, where the moon has already started to dip lower and lower. It is, at most, two hours until dawn.

 _Zelda?_ he signs.

Ganondorf frowns. “She’s… fine. She says to hurry.”

Link grimaces, curling his fingers back into the ground. The soil is hard and wet, but if he digs his fingers in hard enough, it gives. 

_Any tips?_ Link asks him and Ganondorf - he doesn’t quite flinch. But there is something there, a deep well of sadness that flickers across his face almost too quickly to follow. 

“Nothing you don’t already know,” he murmurs, leaning back and away, putting a negligible amount of distance between them. His voice is far away when he continues, dully, “Get rid of the phantoms in the beasts and my true body won’t be much of a challenge.”

Link makes a frustrated noise and before Ganondorf can move, hooks a hand into the collar of his robes and drags him in again, until they’re nose to nose. Ganondorf’s eyes are wide, flecks of brown and green mixed with the gold. As Link watches, those eyes flick downwards, settling firmly on Link’s lips.

He doesn’t bother signing his next words - doesn’t trust Ganondorf to see it at any rate. Instead, he lets his lips shape the word for him. Trusts that this close, Ganondorf will be able to understand.

_Why?_

He shapes the word slowly, with painstaking care, and gets to watch Ganondorf recoil backwards half an inch. The flinch should feel good. It should feel wonderful, that after all these years of pain and suffering, Link can cause _him_ pain.

It doesn’t. 

“You know that it wasn’t-” Ganondorf starts. “That I didn’t-”

Link watches him and slowly, Ganondorf’s shoulders drop. He meets Link’s gaze.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he says, and Link makes a quiet angry noise, wants to demand answers, because if it isn’t his fault, then whose fault is it? Who is responsible for all this pain and devastation, if not for the man causing it?

But Link doesn’t ask that. He's done talking. Instead, he does what he has wanted to do since he got his memories back. He clenches his hand tight, feeling the silky fabric wrinkle under his palm, and reels Ganondorf in. 

The kiss tastes like blood. That shouldn’t be surprising, since Link is still hurting all over and covered in a mixture of lizard blood and his own, but the metallic taste of it catches him off guard. 

Ganondorf’s lips are chapped. It’s another detail that doesn’t quite fit, but Link doesn’t complain, squirming under him until he has enough leverage to shove at his robes. Ganondorf, who had been slow to kiss back, lets out a sharp, startled noise when Link’s hands dip low to stroke across his stomach.

Link, whose attention is tethered to the path of the moon across the sky, doesn’t need to look up to know that they are running out of time. And he wants this. He wants to have more than just his memories, wants the chance to have this again, if only for a night.

He takes Ganondorf’s lower lip between his teeth, and bites down.

Ganondorf lets out a loud, familiar groan, and seems to collapse in on himself. The hesitancy leaves him, and his hands find Link’s hips. His mouth traces a slow, thorough path down Link’s throat, biting and sucking down to his collarbone.

 _Please_ , Link says when he catches Ganondorf’s mouth again. He tips his hips up, arches his back, digging his fingernails into Ganondorf’s shoulders, and then, just to make sure that he’s gotten the point across, he locks his thighs tightly around Ganondorf’s hips, locking his ankles at the small of his back.

Ganondorf looks at him. Link looks steadily back.

“Are you sure?” Ganondorf asks. His voice is soft, but Link can feel his cock, hard where it’s nestled between them. Even then, he is so very still. Waiting for Link’s answer. Link could live to be a thousand years old, and he still wouldn’t be able to tell you when it all went so bad.

Link’s eyes burn, and he has to swallow twice to push down the threat of tears. Without looking, he gropes for the bag a few feet to his left, and comes back a moment later with a jar of oil. He presses this into Ganondorf’s hands and stares back at him, as if daring him to protest.

Ganondorf licks his lips, glancing up at the sky. It hasn’t started to lighten, not yet, but it will soon. 

“All right,” he says softly, and reaches for Link.

Here are the things that Link remembers about Ganondorf:

They met in the summer. Link wasn’t quite a knight yet and Ganondorf was the only male Gerudo born in centuries. He was not an ambassador, because to be an ambassador was to be something other than what he was - a prince. A royal. Son of the desert. They had thought, for a time, that the plan was to have him and Zelda wed. In the end though, they hadn’t had time to find out what Zelda’s father had planned.

When Link had been at the palace for a year, he’d found Ganondorf alone in the gardens. They’d passed the time companionably, and after that day, they’d been… friends. Or something like it at least.

His memory is hazy on when exactly his feelings had changed. Their relationship was a strange one. Zelda made it stranger still, because Link was never entirely sure where he stood with her. 

And then, on a night much like this one, when the air was cold and biting and the moon was full in the sky, Ganondorf had kissed him. 

He does not remember when it went bad, and isn’t sure if that is an accident or by design. But he does remember the in-between, when he’d had Ganondorf. When he’d had him in his bed and his damnable heart. 

The after is hazy, his memory held together by threads. 

And then there is this. This last kiss of death. A gift. A chance to say goodbye, before Link is forced to send his ghost to a place where he can’t follow. 

Ganondorf presses a kiss to the corner of Link’s jaw, his mouth open and wet. He is gasping against Link’s throat, his brow sweaty, his hips moving between Link’s splayed thighs, and Link is caught - suspended between two points. Past and present. Pain and pleasure. Night and day. He hopes the night will never end.

But all good things must.

Ganondorf kisses him and kisses him, and all the while, the sky is lightening above them, an unmistakable pale violet. A new dawn.


End file.
